Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. I guess this is also my passion. I’d love to have those elders in the school. We have to work with it with the school boards. We have asked for different options on how we can work around the system where their pensions are not clawed back. I don’t have control over the federal pension. We have to pay these elders if they want to work or else they’re not going to work. Of course, they’re penalized for that. We’ve been trying to work around the system of how we can work with them so they’re not penalized. We talk about possibly a gift to them at the end of the school year. Those are areas. Also going through maybe the local band for us to contribute to them and they can pay the elders.
I know Members addressed this to us on a number of occasions. This is not an easy process. It is taking some time. We are not giving up on this. I know Nunavut has also initiated this process but they’re still struggling with the same dilemma that we’re faced with. It’s not just us, it’s other jurisdictions as well. We are still exploring those options of how we can get around from penalizing those elders.
We want them in the schools very badly. As the Member alluded, we are losing our elders. We need to fully utilize their services and their expertise, their experience. We want to do that. That is our commitment as the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. We’ll continue to push that.